Darkness Favours the Enemy
by Jack of the Pelt
Summary: After his defeat at the hands of the Doctor in San Francisco, the Master is left as a phantom to wander the time vortex for the rest of eternity. But a powerful entity - an old enemy of the Chosen Children - has plans for the evil Time Lord...


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Author's Note: This is a prelude to a forthcoming Digimon/Doctor Who crossover, which I hope to begin writing soon. If you know who is talking to the Master, please don't give it away in your reviews, but if you really want to have the surprise ruined for you, e-mail me with your guess and I'll tell you if you're right. This story is set after _Doctor Who - The Movie_ (at least from the Master's point of view) and has nothing to do with my previous crossover _A Chance Meeting_.

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Disclaimer: Digimon belongs to Toei Animation Co., Fox Kids, Saban Entertainment and Bandai, Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and both are used without permission.

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Darkness Favours the Enemy

By Jack of the Pelt

The Doctor: "You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is kill!"

The Master: "Life is wasted on the living!"

The Doctor and the Master, _Doctor Who - The Movie_

Hatred. Rage. Pain.

These were the things that the entity that was once the evil Time Lord know as the Master now felt as his essence floated though the time vortex, it's myriad colours flowing around him.

He could not tell how long he had been here, as it could have been for a few seconds, or even for millions of years. It was an irony indeed that time meant very little here.

But one thing dominated his thoughts more than anything - his hatred of his rival, the Doctor. He continuously ran what had happened to him in what counted as his mind over and over again.

He had been captured by the Daleks, the cyborg mutants seeking revenge for one of his past betrayals of them, and had been executed after a mockery of a trial. But beforehand he had been given one last request, with which he had asked if the Doctor could return his remains to Gallifrey, their home world. The Daleks had unsurprisingly agreed, eager to extract revenge on the Time Lord who had defeated them on so many occasions. But somehow the Doctor had escaped their clutches and retrieved the Master's remains. How, the Master did not know, but he did not really care either. 

But even his death was part of a greater plan. He had used a parasite he had created to store his personality inside, and proceeded to implant it within himself. The Doctor had retrieved his remains, which contained the jelly-like parasite, and placed them within a small casket. The creature managed to escape it's prison and invaded his rival's TARDIS, pulling it off course. It had landed on Earth in the city of San Francisco, where the Doctor was killed, but managed to regenerate. The parasite meanwhile had taken up residency inside the body of a paramedic, giving the Master a new body, but unfortunately it started to decay rapidly, forcing him to find the Doctor and take over his new body.

But it had all went horribly wrong. During the ensuring struggle he had with the Doctor, he had been sucked into the connection to The Eye of Harmony on board the Doctor's TARDIS, destroying his physical form, leaving only what could have been called his spirit. The final indignity had been that the Doctor's own TARDIS had used the energy gained from the annihilation of the stolen body to restored to life those two useless humans, and his essence had been unceremoniously ejected into the time vortex.

And now he was here, left to drift aimlessly in the vortex for eternity with only his hatred to keep him company.

But not for long.

__

Koschei… whispered a voice from literally nowhere.

"Who knows my name?" he challenged, startled.

__

I know many things, Time Lord. Suddenly, as huge black shadow appeared before him, a pair of red eyes glowing balefully at him from within.

"Who are you?" he snarled, suspicious.

__

I have a task for you, Koschei, said whatever was within the pillar, ignoring his question.

Despite himself, the Master was curious. "What do you what of me?" he asked.

_Simple. I want you to make preparations for my rebirth. Also, I wish to gain revenge, a concept you understand very well._

"Revenge? On whom?" This was getting interesting.

_I shall reveal to you the ones who were behind my downfall. Behold!_

Suddenly, the Master's mind was full of images. He saw a boy with wild brown hair wearing goggles, a girl with red hair wearing a strange blue hat, a blonde boy with deep blue eyes, a brown haired girl with a large pink cowgirl hat, another, but younger, blonde boy with a green hat, a girl the same age with short brown hair wearing a pink scarf, a dark haired boy wearing thick glasses, a boy with red hair typing away at a primitive laptop computer, an older boy wearing a blue shirt, a much younger boy with dark hair, another boy wearing goggles, a lavender haired girl who wore glasses as well, and finally a small brown haired boy with a severe expression.

The Master reeled from the shock of receiving the images, but he soon regained his composure and began to laugh. "Children?" he snorted. "You were defeated by mere human _children_?"

_Not any normal human children, Time Lord. They are know as the Chosen. They are the guardians of the Digital World, and they have defeated evil beings whose power is almost as great as mine countless times._

"That's all very well," he said, "but what's in it for me?"

_A new body, with a new cycle of regenerations, and a new TARDIS._

"And?"

_AND NOTHING! You belong to me now._

"I belong to nobody!" cried the Master, enraged.

_So be it, Time Lord. I shall leave you to wander the time vortex for the rest of eternity._

The shadow started to melt away into the maelstrom of the vortex, making the Master panic. "No! No, I accept your terms!" he cried. Being a slave was preferable to being left here.

_Excellent._

There was a bright flash, and then nothing.

***

The Master slowly opened his eyes, blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the bright light.

He sat up, and surveyed his surroundings. He recognised where he was immediately: the console room of a TARDIS, the type he wasn't sure of, but it was a TARDIS nevertheless.

At that precise moment he realised something was different about himself.

He was no longer merely some kind of phantom. He was _real_. Real, solid matter. He ran his hands over his face, feeling the flesh underneath in shock.

He quickly climbed to his feet and rushed over to the central console to examined his reflection in one of the dark screens set inside it. The face staring back at him was young, perhaps no more than a century old, with dark blonde hair and darker green eyes. Maybe the body used to belong to a student at academy on Gallifrey who stole a TARDIS, looking for a little excitement in his dull little life and had got more than he bargained for. It would not have been his first choice for a new body, but beggars couldn't be choosers, he decided.

The Master stretched his new arms out. He looked down at the robes he had just noticed he was wearing, deciding that they didn't suit him at all. Perhaps a change of clothes was in order…

***

An hour later, the Master was now wearing an ensemble similar to the one he had wore when had been in the body he had last stolen, complete with a long leather jacket and dark glasses.

"A change of scenery as well, perhaps…"he murmured to himself, as he looked around the room. He leant over the central console and examined the controls. They were not too dissimilar to his last TARDIS, so they would be quite easy to manipulate. He pressed several buttons on the console and a screen emerged from a panel in front of him. A few more button presses and a series of numbers appeared on the screen. He smiled, and pressed some more buttons.

Suddenly his surroundings started to blur, changing from their original sterile white appearance to a much darker, gothic style, which made the room look strangely like the insides of a sinister cathedral.

Now, what should he do next? Should he hunt down the Doctor first and extract his revenge slowly and painfully? Or should he formulate a plan to humiliate him with? He drummed his fingers on the surface of the console as he deliberated on what to do.

He smiled, finally deciding on what to do and where to go. His hand reached across to enter coordinates into the console.

_You are not going anywhere unless I tell you to,_ whispered the voice of the creature he had met in the vortex.

__

"AAAGGGHHH!!!"the Master screamed as a searing pain went though his brain. He collapsed forward over the console, clutching at his head in agony.

_You will go to this location and perform a task for me, my new servant. _The Master grimaced as a series of numbers and letters appeared in his mind. _Do not worry, you will have your chance at revenge soon enough._

"Yes, my master," he snarled though gritted teeth as he entered the coordinates he was given. The irony of what he had just said to the entity was not lost on him.

***

With a wheezing-groaning sound the Master's new TARDIS materialised in a dingy back alley, making a stray cat run for cover with a meow of surprise. For a few seconds it stayed in it's default shape, a tall white cube with a sliding door set inside it. But a moment later it took on the shape of large crate. The Master stepped out of the door which suddenly opened in it's side, and looked around with barely concealed distaste.

He knew at once that he was on Earth. Tokyo, Japan to be precise. He had only been here once before, during the what the humans referred to as the 1920s in their timeline, but that had been many centuries ago in his own lifetime.

But his thoughts were mostly concerned with the creature that had restored him to life. He had no idea what it was, and this worried him. It had told him that it had offered the previous owner of his new body great power if he served him, but the foolish boy had refused, and the creature had promptly killed him. Only by pure chance had the entity come across the Master's essence so soon afterwards.

During his academy days back on Gallifrey he had read many books on the creatures that lived in the time vortex, but this new entity was something completely different to any of them. It had to be powerful indeed if it could kill the occupant of a TARDIS while it was in transit, and that worried him greatly. 

But now was not the time for speculation, because, much as he hated the fact, he had a mission to carry out. The thing from the vortex had given him precise instructions on what he should do, which was to locate several certain human teenagers and… _alter_ their minds. He had no idea why the creature wanted him to do this. Revenge had crossed his mind, but it seemed such a petty way of doing it, and an incredible waste of his talents. Somehow he had to find a way to escape from it's control as well, and his mind worked furiously as he tried to concoct a way of breaking the creature's hold over him.

A thought struck him. One that terrified him and excited him at the same time. Could it be that the creature wanted to-

He stopped in his tracks as something caught his eye across the street, all thoughts of the creature pushed aside for the moment.

There she was. One of the humans he was sent to find. She was a few years older than the visual image he had been given, but there was no doubting who it was. She was on her own, walking down the street towards him, and the Master quickly hurried up to her.

***

It was a pleasant Friday afternoon in Spring, and Sora Takenouchi smiled as she headed for her family's apartment from school. She had walked some of the way with her boyfriend, Yamato Ishida, but had to turn down his offer of coming to his band practice, because she had to have an early night as she had promised to help her mother with her flower shop in the morning. So he had kissed her on the cheek and said goodbye, saying he would give her a call later to see if she wanted to do anything tomorrow afternoon. He had then walked off, giving her a quick wave before he disappeared from sight.

Now as she walked home she noticed a man hurrying along the street towards her. The man was probably European or American, and he was tall, blond and handsome, his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark glasses.

"Excuse me, young lady," said the man as he approached her.

Sora started and looked at him in surprise. "Er, can I help you, sir?" she said as she stopped walking. She was ready to run just in case this guy turned out to be some kind of pervert.

"Is your name Sora Takenochi?" he asked. Sora figured he was English, judging from his accent. He was, however, speaking Japanese like a native.

"Erm, yeah it is," she replied, shuffling nervously, wondering how the hell he knew her name.

"Excellent." The man smiled wolfishly as he removed his glasses and looked her straight in the eye, fixing her with a powerful stare. He spoke, his tone becoming harsh and commanding. "Sora Takenochi, you will listen to me and do everything I say."

Sora found she was totally rooted to the spot, transfixed by the man's almost unnatural green eyes. "W-why s-should I?" she managed to say as she felt her final reserves of willpower leave her.

"You will, girl," he said, smiling with grim satisfaction, "_because I am the Master and you will obey me!_"

***

Deep in the heart of the time vortex, the creature that now controlled the Master exulted. _Soon… _it whispered menacingly, _Soon I will be reborn, and nothing will be able stop me! AHAHAHAHA!!!_


End file.
